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A SHORT NOTE ON RUTILIUS NAMATIANUS 1.632

2016; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 66; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0009838816000240

1471-6844

Stefano Rocchi,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Near the end of the first book of his De reditu the poet Rutilius is delayed in Triturrita, on the Tuscan coast, because of the dark and stormy weather. The South-West Wind with its dripping wings—says the poet in an Ovidian imitation—does not cease from summoning pitch-black clouds and obfuscating the sun's light for several days (631–2). Elegant images of constellations (633–8)—perhaps not just ornamental, but also indicating the dates and the duration of the delay—and the reference to the tempestuous sea and to two possible explanations of ocean's tides (639–44) round the first book off (1.631-9): interea madidis non desinit Africus alis continuos picea nube negare dies. iam matutinis Hyades occasibus udae; iam latet hiberno conditus imbre Lepus, exiguum radiis, sed magnis fluctibus, astrum, 635 quo madidam nullus nauita linquat humum; namque procelloso subiungitur Orioni aestiferumque Canem roscida praeda fugit. 632 negare B : necare VR Although the meaning of the first couplet (631–2) is clear, a textual difficulty seems to affect the pentameter. Since the editio princeps by Giovanni Battista Pio ( B, dated to 1520), a well-established tradition of scholars has preferred the vulgate reading negare to necare , a reading found in V (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, lat. 277, dated to 1502) and R (Rome, Bibl. Corsiniana, Caetani 158; c .1520/30). However we reconstruct the stemma (bipartite: VB R, V BR ; tripartite: V B R ), necare was the reading of the archetype, whereas negare could be a banalization of necare or a conjecture of the editor princeps .